Bossa nova and Latin comping thumb below, chords on the clave

The bossa nova pattern lasts two bars of 4/4. Count each bar in eighth notes, 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &. The chord hits fall on five of those sixteen counts:

Bar 1	1	& of 2	4
Bar 2	2	& of 3

This is the 3-2 bossa clave: three hits in the first bar, two in the second. It is the same pattern as the bossa card in the Rhythm room’s Timelines lesson.

1. Set the metronome in the bottom bar to 70 BPM.
2. Tap your foot on every beat. Clap the five hits above on your knee, for eight bars, without looking at the table.
3. Say the counts out loud as you clap: “1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &” with the clapped counts in italics.
4. Do not move on until your clap and your foot are still together on bar 2’s second hit, the & of 3. It is the hit most people drag.

The thumb plays the bass on beat 1 and beat 3 of every bar, always the same count. It alternates between the root of the chord and its fifth: for Am7 the root is the open A string and the fifth is the open low E string. Play it with the thumb only and let each note ring until the next.

e|------|-------
B|------|-------
G|------|-------
D|------|-------
A|-0----|-0-----
E|----0-|----0--

Play the thumb

1. Play the TAB at 70 BPM, two bars at a time, until the bass is even and the notes ring across the gap.
2. Turn the click down and see if you can keep the half-note pulse alone. The thumb is the clock of the pattern, and everything else hangs from it.

The fingers play the chord on the top three strings, G, B and high e: the index finger on the G string, the middle on the B and the ring on the high e, all plucked at the same moment like a pinch. Hold an Am7 with the open strings (the left hand fingers only the B string, at fret 1). Each hit is short. Pluck it, then lay the right-hand palm lightly on the strings so the chord stops almost at once. It is a “chk”, not a ring.

e|-0--0--0-|-0--0--
B|-1--1--1-|-1--1--
G|-0--0--0-|-0--0--
D|---------|-------
A|---------|-------
E|---------|-------

Play the chord hits

1. Play the TAB at 70 BPM. The five hits are exactly the clave you clapped.
2. Keep the thumb off the strings entirely. The goal is to make the five hits short and even.

Now add the thumb underneath. The very first hit of each pattern has the bass note and the chord played at once. The two bars below are Am7, then Dm7. For Dm7 the root is the open D string and the fifth is the open A string, and the chord sits on the top three strings at frets 2, 1 and 1.

e|-0--0-----0-|----0-----0-|-1--1-----1-|----1-----1--
B|-1--1-----1-|----1-----1-|-1--1-----1-|----1-----1--
G|-0--0-----0-|----0-----0-|-2--2-----2-|----2-----2--
D|------------|------------|-0----------|-0-----------
A|-0----------|-0----------|-------0----|-------0-----
E|-------0----|-------0----|------------|-------------

Play the pattern

1. Start at 60 BPM. If the two hands fight, go back to Stage 1 and 2 and play each alone for one minute.
2. Read the TAB one column at a time. Column 1 has a bass note and a chord. Column 2 is only the chord. Column 3 is only the bass. When a column has only one hand, the other hand must do nothing, not even drag.
3. Play Am7 for two bars, then Dm7 for two bars, with no break and no extra beat for the change.
4. Raise the tempo five BPM at a time to 90 BPM. If it falls apart, go back five BPM.
5. Record two minutes. The chords should be quieter than the bass and much shorter. If they ring on, they blur into the next bass note.

Musicians describe a clave by which bar is first. The pattern above is 3-2: the three-hit bar first. Play the same two bars starting from the second one and you have the 2-3. The notes do not change; only which bar your song’s first beat falls on.

1. Play the two-bar pattern for four rounds as a 3-2.
2. On the next round start with the two-hit bar: the chord hits fall on 2 and the & of 3, then on 1, the & of 2 and 4.
3. Which one fits the melody depends on the song: listen to which bar the singer’s phrase starts in, and put the three-hit bar where the phrase begins to move.

Keep the thumb exactly where it is (bass on 1 and 3) and change only where the fingers hit. Each of these is a two-bar pattern from the Rhythm room’s Timelines lesson:

Pattern	Bar 1	Bar 2	What changes
Bossa nova	1, & of 2, 4	2, & of 3	The pattern you just learned
Son clave 3-2	1, & of 2, 4	2, 3	The last hit moves from the & of 3 to 3
Rumba clave 3-2	1, & of 2, & of 4	2, 3	Bar 1’s last hit moves from 4 to the & of 4
Shiko	1, 3, 4	2, 3	The & of 2 moves to 3

1. Clap each pattern against the click first, as in Count the clave first.
2. Play it on one Am7 chord: thumb on 1 and 3, fingers on the new hit counts.
3. Move from bossa to son and back every four bars without stopping. If the change is clean, you can feel exactly where each clave differs.

One hit moves and the whole style changes. Latin guitar is mostly this: the hands stay the same and the clave decides.

The shorter one-bar patterns work the same way. Keep the thumb on 1 and 3 and play the chord on these counts:

• Charleston: 1 and the & of 2.
• Tresillo: 1, the & of 2 and 4.
• Habanera: 1, the & of 2, 3 and 4.
• Cinquillo: 1, 2, the & of 2, the & of 3 and 4.

They are also on the Strumming page as one-chord strums with their own Play button.

Move on when all of these are true on a normal day:

• You can clap the 3-2 bossa clave against the click for eight bars, and start it from the 2-3 side.
• You can play the thumb alone for a minute with the notes ringing across the gap.
• You can play the full pattern on Am7 and Dm7 at 80 BPM, with the chords clearly shorter and quieter than the bass.
• You can switch from bossa to son clave and back without losing the thumb.